


Cargo

by Davechicken



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-02
Updated: 2017-01-02
Packaged: 2018-09-14 08:45:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9171670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Davechicken/pseuds/Davechicken
Summary: Bodhi has the most precious cargo of all.





	

Bodhi’s fingers itch to press buttons. Flying consists of two phases: the take-off-and-landing, which can be difficult and require innate knowledge of your ship’s response to atmospheric changes, and then sitting.

Sitting.

Once you’ve made the jump to hyperspace, you pretty much sit. And. 

Not much else. 

Normally, he’s there as a just-in-case. Droids _can_ fly successfully, but they’re certainly not trusted in the same way as Humans are, not by the Empire. Droids can be reprogrammed much more easily than Humans can. 

With a droid, you change a few 0s to 1s and that’s it.

With Humans…

Long flights, with everyone asleep or ignoring him. Bodhi was used to being seen as less than important. He was only useful for them at the start and the end of the journey, and the Empire probably wouldn’t mind if he’d not existed between.

Galen had been different. 

 _Call me Galen_. He’d insisted, from the start. No Mr. Erso, no rank, no title. Galen didn’t wear rank on his clothing, and so Bodhi hadn’t even known _how_ you referred to him, other than as ‘Sir’. 

The scientist had crawled up into the cockpit with him, refusing to stay in his small room whenever Bodhi flew him places. The first time had left Bodhi wondering what he’d done wrong (not smooth enough on the take-off? Something with the ship wrong? Heating?), and surprised anyone that high up would want to talk to him. He’d assumed Galen couldn’t sleep, or just was feeling the need for company… but when it happened nearly every time, he realised the man _enjoyed_ his company.

Few people even bothered to learn his full name. Galen had. Galen Erso. Bodhi Rook. Friends no one would ever suspect. _Friends_. That’s what he’d come to think of them as. Friends.

Sitting side by side, staring at the stars shooting by. Galen knew more about them than Bodhi had ever heard, and he’d always been free with his knowledge, happy to share. Bodhi had listened to them all.

***

Over Jedha, one day, some problem with the shipments that apparently only Galen could fix. Bodhi had clung to his ship on the side of the temple, not quite able to look directly in through the open roof at the carnage below. He’d grown up here, and the old superstitions still clung to his bones like smoke around a campfire. 

He’d felt itchy then, too. Itchy to get _away_ , even though it had been home, so very long ago. He didn’t like seeing something that had once been so important picked and plucked and scavenged like this.

Galen had been pale, when he got back aboard.

“You didn’t come with me.”  


“Did you need me to?”  


“No, but… why not?”  


Bodhi had shrugged. “I came from here. From Jedha. I didn’t… want to see it broken.”

Broken. A disloyal word, and he’d bitten his tongue. _All for the glory of the Empire_. 

“Do you know what we are taking from the temple?”  


“Galen, I’m not sure I–”  


“It is just you and I. No one else is aboard.”  


“Crystals. Jedi crystals.” That was the story, that was what they used to use, right? For their light swords.   


“Yes, kyber crystals, but we’re not giving them to Jedi, not now.”  


“Then why? There are no Jedi, not any more.”  


“…that’s true. They are very powerful crystals. They can focus energy into a beam…”  


“But the ones you were bringing up, they were bigger than anyone could hold in their hand!”  


“That’s because they’re being used in a much bigger weapon. We’re refining them, back on Eadu. We’re… we’re putting them in a massive weapon, Bodhi. One that has power unlike you’ve ever considered.”  


Bodhi pulled his lips into his mouth, unsure how to feel about that. 

“It will destroy whole planets, Bodhi. It will destroy them completely.”  


Planets. He’d sat in silence for the rest of that journey, hating the inside of his mind for knowing this. Hating Galen for telling him. Hating knowing anything beyond how to trim his wings in ion storms, or how to land in a whirlwind. Ignorance had been safer, and knowledge was nothing but danger.

***

Galen had told him many things, after that. Once Bodhi had nodded, he’d told him of a time before, and a life before. A life away from all this, and a time when the Jedi had been more than just a myth.

A life he’d been too young to really remember, a world before a circular seal.

Bodhi had listened, as Galen told him secrets he couldn’t really know.

Like reprogramming a droid, but slower. 0s. 1s. Truths. 

They’d raped his home-moon of her secrets, and trampled the galaxy under their uniform boots, and Bodhi hated what he’d become. A mindless drone, a person supporting a regime without ever asking _why_. 

Just to survive.

But there was more to living than surviving.

That’s why Galen had given him the message, and why it’s tucked into his boot. His cargo this time is goods alone, although…

Not quite. His real cargo is himself, and a message he’s carrying for a man he’s never met. Saw Gerrera. He’s got to meet Saw Gerrera, and hand over this secret, this string of truths. This message of hope, that might set things right.

He’s _terrified_. The tracker he ripped out in hyperspace is dead, sitting on the co-pilot’s seat, where Galen used to sit. He stares at it, and wishes his friend were here, right now.

He can’t be, because they need to not suspect. They would never suspect a lowly cargo pilot like himself, but they _would_ suspect someone as intelligent and experienced as Galen Erso. 

Every flash of light through the sky is a star, and every star could hold worlds and moons on end. Worlds and moons that could die, if this weapon is completed. Blasted into nothingness, at the end of a button. A button like those in front of him, and he wonders if the person pressing it even knows for sure.

Bodhi looks at his dash, and hopes he can fly this message through. It’s the most important thing he’s ever done, and he is so very, very afraid.


End file.
